


resistless love, my soul invades: the five times he doubted him, and the one time he didn’t

by orionseye



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Canon Relationships, Canon Timeline, Engagement, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:28:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27883768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orionseye/pseuds/orionseye
Summary: Henry loves Alex, and Alex loves Henry.This is a fact.Alex loves him as surely as the sky is blue, as loudly as the streets of New York at 3 am, as steady as the cold hardwood floors of their townhouse in Brooklyn against bare feet. And it’s not like he doesn’t show it; Alex’s endearment is everywhere, written all over the loopy handwriting on the notes he leaves on their kitchen countertop when he has to leave early for class, tucked away neatly in the annotations he leaves late at night in Henry’s favourite books for him to find later.Yet, and he’s never told anyone this, but sometimes, out of habit, Henry finds himself wondering if Alex really knows what he’s getting into with him.AKA: the five times henry wasn't sure about alex and the one time after he definitely was
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor
Comments: 16
Kudos: 150





	resistless love, my soul invades: the five times he doubted him, and the one time he didn’t

**Author's Note:**

> this is my second rwrb fic :D i thought this was gonna be a one time thing but the fact that people even read what i wrote absolutely blew my mind :,) here's some more henry for y'all, i hope you like it <3
> 
> \- ori

1.

“Making nice with your arrogant American equivalent would’ve been enough torture already if you weren’t already deeply infatutated with him, H, give yourself a break.”

Henry groans, falling backwards into the cushions of the couch with a satisfying thump.

It’s barely been one evening since Alex left the palace, but after two days too many of playing friendly for cameras and charity events to make up for the damage of “Cakegate”, as the Daily Mail has started calling it, there was only one place for him to go and release the whirlwind of emotions the entire ordeal cultivated. That’s how he found himself hiding away in a lesser used room in Kensington Palace, finishing off a second bottle of expensive wine with his best friend.

“I knew it was going to be hard, okay? I just didn’t expect to literally get in a fist fight with him while locked into a closet together, run into him while he was on the phone with his best friend in the middle of the night, or _get his number._ ”

“I really don’t get why you’re treating this like it’s such a big deal. You saw him wearing reading glasses once and you’re acting like someone caught you two making out in the Queen’s bedroom.”

“Ha.” Henry says flatly, followed by a quiet sigh. “It was intimate regardless, and nothing between us is supposed to be. I’m supposed to barely tolerate him, because he barely tolerates me, but the entire situation was far too friendly for my taste, especially because we’re—”

He pauses, searching for the right word.

Pez somehow, knows exactly what he means. “You’re you, H. That’s never going to change. Maybe he’s the right person for you, even just as a friend. You’ve got whatever disaster position you’re in in common with him and that’s rare. You already know that.”

He does, he thinks, definitely know that.

Pez has always been the perfect stark contrast to Henry. He’s loose, honest, upfront and very surely colourful, both in character and appearance. Henry’s most definitely the opposite, a repressed and maudlin opposition to the chipped sapphire nail polish his best friend chose to sport this week. 

There’s a thing they have in common though, the one that sealed them together from the first day they met, and it's their understanding of the same fundamental truths: that they have the opportunity, money and in Henry’s case, globally recognized power, to influence more than most, and that a lot of people in their positions abuse that. That being yourself in spite of familiar expectations will always be a battle you can never really win. And in this case, that Henry's crush on Alex is different than his usual affliction for a pretty boy who side-stepped into his life. 

The difference here, being the catastrophic implications of a British royal having feelings for an American diplomat.

“I hardly doubt anything about this situation is right, Pez.”

2\. 

The Queen’s Bedroom is only one of a dozen guest bedrooms in the White House. Like most of them, it’s filled with its fair share of ornately carved furniture and frilly curtains. Its one distinguishable feature, and really its only one, is a horrid pink theme that runs head to toe. Bubblegum walls, beddings, chairs; even the flowers embellished on the hideous rug are the same shade of bubbly pink. On a January evening after the State Banquet, Henry was vanquished from The First Son’s room into this one, forced to memorize the horrendous striped pattern of the bed’s canopy. He lies on his back, staring upwards.

He thinks, well. He thinks a lot of things.

His head is spinning, to say the least.

For one, he thinks that the forces of both fate and irony must have conspired to decide a room of such namesake was the perfect place for no other than the Prince of England. Or maybe it was Alex. Either way, he would rather sleep just about anywhere else.

Second: what the fuck just happened?

He knows, logically, exactly what happened. He just hooked up with the President of the United States’ son, and it's both a catastrophic disaster and also totally, completely, fine.

They’re both young and attractive and slightly tipsy, and Alex is bisexual, apparently, so like, it was on their event horizon anyways, right? It's not like he wasn’t familiar with one night stands. He’d had his fair share.

But this was Alex. He’d be an idiot to treat it the same as anything he’d ever done before. It was Alex, golden heartthrob of the country which just so happened to be his own ancestor's ex-colony. He’d royally fucked up. Henry knows this.

It’s not just the horrible historic and social implications that have his heart racing long after the fact, though those, he notes, have him edging on what seems to be an impending panic attack. Alex was straight in Henry’s books up until then. Their proximity on tabloid covers for the past half a decade ensured he had a vague idea of his dating history, and apart from the usual baseless rumors, the only notable or consistent relationship he ever seemed to be in was an on-and-off situation with Nora, the granddaughter of the Vice President. Either way, always women. 

There was never an option Alex would reciprocate anything. There wasn’t supposed to be.

_“I’ve never actually done this before.”_

He’d told him flat out that this was his first. First boy, at least. Regardless, something in the way he pulled him away from the crowd, the way he kissed him, led him to his rooms, it all pointed to a feeling in Alex matching a fervor of his own: something they’d both been thinking about for a while.

_“You know this doesn’t, like, change anything between us, right? We’re still … whatever we were before.”_

What even were they before? Henry can’t pinpoint a word to describe it. He never could really make anything tangible of Alex. If he truly hated him the way he said so often, he’d done a better and better job of hiding it. He doubts though, that there was any affection lacking on Alex’s end that night. They’re beyond that now, and have been for a while; beyond the icy space between acquainted and friendly. He guesses that places them somewhere within the vast, vast cavity in his chest that only grows as the moments pass. 

It’s all dissonant. He cares enough about Henry to tell him about the key he wears around his neck every day, wants him enough to leave marks on his skin, knowing he shouldn’t, but doesn’t want him staying the night in case someone finds out. How was he supposed to draw any reasonable conclusion from that?

_“Hey, don’t freak out.”_

Despite his promise not to, he is very much, freaking out. 

3\. 

Henry’s always had bad dreams. 

In this one, he’s on stage.

The crowd is loud, and he’s singing. He doesn’t recognize the song, but he knows it’s the best performance he’s ever given.

He finishes, and the audience is cheering. They’re loud. The noise is in his ears and his eyes and his throat. A warmth fills his chest.

They start throwing roses. Roses, roses, roses, red petals and green leaves and thorns. Thorns raining down, on stage, on him. He tries to tell them to stop. 

_“It’s beautiful, but it hurts.”_ He wants to scream to them, but he can’t. 

His mouth is full of sand. 

He drowns in flowers. 

He’s yanked out of his sleep back into reality, and wakes up to find himself pressed against Alex’s back. 

He’s safe here. 

_Deep breaths._

He pulls away from him, and Alex rolls over in his sleep, a small grumble coming out instinctively. 

The clock on the bedside reads 6:45 AM. It’d been three hours since they fell asleep. Henry’s throbbing hangover brings back memories of last night. They were in Los Angeles; there was a bar, definitely some vodka. Karaoke? He was on a stage. God knows who persuaded him to get up there. There was a limousine, way too many french fries. He fought Nora for a place in Alex's lap and lost, but he made up for the lost contact later. He remember’s Alex’s hands on him, in his hair, on his waist, in other places…

And now they’re waking up together.

Henry realizes, in that moment, that he’s never been involved with someone in the way he is with Alex.

It’s the closest thing to a boyfriend he’s ever had, and far closer than he ever thought he could get to anyone, much less him.

It’s no wonder that when he tries to reach towards his frame of reference to find the words for what he’s feeling, he comes up short. 

Here’s the thing: his brother had gotten married not even a year ago, but something about their relationship had always seemed ironically tragic to him. Martha was a sweet, intelligent heiress, and Phillip was, well, Phillip, second in line to the throne. Regardless of his prickly personality, his stiff attitudes, he was bound to get married, to have children, eventually. It was one of his royal duties, but deep down, Henry knows that Phillip had never once even thought about what he actually wants to do with his life. One night, on a late facetime call, Alex had described their relationship as something “as sexy as a business transaction,” and that seems to summarize it better than he ever could. That’s not Henry’s type of love, and it never could be.

His parents were much more rebellious, fighting the Queen’s word from day one. It had always been his favorite thing about them; the glint in his mum’s eye when he was four years old, sat on her knee, laughing as he listened to her tell the story of how she met his dad for the millionth time. It never got old, no matter how many times she recounted a different version of the same night. Henry always thought fairy tales glamourize royalty far too much, but there was something pure magic in his parents, or so he thought when he was younger. The allure in their life ended almost as quickly as it started, when his dad passed. The princess was supposed to have a happy ending with the love of her life. She didn’t. 

Henry looks at the sleeping boy beside him. Alex’s now curled on his side, facing towards him. Their alarm is set to ring in the next half an hour, but he’s blissfully unaware. Asleep, the bags under his eyes lighten slightly, and the blue light of the early morning, peeking behind the curtains, washes over his skin, evening out his warm undertones to a paleish sort of gray. 

And there are the words he was looking for.

I love you.

It’s the first time he’s ever let himself think it like that. Out in the open, on the tip of his tongue. 

He knows he’s supposed to feel good about it. Being in love is supposed to feel good. But it doesn’t. The easy rise and fall of Alex's chest only encourages a tightness in his own, in his chest and his head and in his throat. He wants to reach over, to touch him, to kiss him, to wake Alex up. He wishes he had the gut to say it. “I love you,” he’d say. “I’m not supposed to, but I love you, and I can’t imagine a future where we could ever be happy, where this could work. We’re running out of time.”

He’s tried before, to think of the kind of future they could have, if he let Alex be his first priority, if he put himself and the people he cared about, truly cared about, first. He always drew a blank after the first guarantees: the Crown’s disapproval, maybe disownment, running away. To where, he doesn’t even know. Would Alex want to be with him? Even without everything he’s supposed to be? If he was just a boy, and not a prince? 

Alex, he reminds himself, has a future, not just a title. It’s not like he would drop his entire career plans, his family, his friends, to run away with him. It’s not even Henry’s choice, if he’s allowed to love him or not.

They, whatever they are, were doomed from the start. Alex would say there’s something Shakespearean about it, and maybe he’s right. 

He wishes Alex knew, though. How he felt before him, directionless, asking for so little yet wanting so much more. How different he feels now.

Somewhere between the headache and nausea from what now appears to be an extremely pounding hangover, a quote from his university years, an English translation of a heavy Latin phrase, slips into the corner of his mind.

_“But love, resistless love, my soul invades, discretion this, affection that persuades. I see the right and I approve it too, condemn the wrong and yet the wrong pursue.”_

It takes a moment before he can place where it’s from, but when he does, well. 

Before he can register where he’s going, he’s reaching over the nightstand, taking a piece of paper from the hotel stationary. He scribbles down a sentence, a letter, a reminder. He gets up and tucks it into Alex’s kimono from the night before, sprawled on the bedroom floor. He may never find it, but God, Henry wishes he will.

In neat cursive, the note reads:

_“Dear Thisbe,_

_I wish there weren’t a wall._

_Love, Pyramus”_

4\. 

Henry’s life has always been unarguably, hard. Not the kind of hard you overcome, not a summit to climb, a mountain he could cross over eventually. His life was hard in the way the concrete pavement was hard underneath the soles of his worn sneakers as he ran laps around Kensington Palace, it was hard in the way the tumultuous showers of rain were that dawn: cold, harsh, and unescapable. Last night, the weight of his role in the world all hit him, in the way it so often did, like knuckles on a feverish hand, a punch in the mouth from someone who told you they loved you. Today was the bruise after, everything in shades of purple and blue you can’t wash off, under his skin and in the early morning skies. 

He tried his best to outrun it, the thought that Alex was there, in the palace. He couldn’t avoid it though; the aching in his chest was a constant reminder: a part of his heart was left asleep in his room, in his bed, moments away.

_“I can’t shut this off like you do, Henry.”_

Alex is a fool. A hopeless, heedless fool. He’s been one all along; from the beginning to... wherever they are now. He was reckless pulling them into the Red Room in the White House, and he’s been insufferably impulsive almost every day since, all the way down to yesterday, flying out to England with no warning, just to fight with him in person.

He couldn’t take the hint that maybe they needed some space. 

Alex was the most naive when he thought Henry had a choice.

_“You don’t make it fucking easy, but I’m in love with you.”_

Maybe Henry was a fool too. More than Alex is.

He was a lot of things, actually. He was a tense, anomic, unstable twenty-three year old who could never do any of the things expected of him properly; most of his extended family already considers him quite an insolent heir to the throne, and they don’t even know the half of the ways he was disappointing them.

Henry ran into Phillip this morning. Ran is a nice word for it though; it was much more of a panicked stumble, stammering for something caffeinated and warm to soothe the jumbled feelings about the boy in his bed, about ends left untied. His brother was in Kensington for a whole week while whatever royal estate or two he usually lived in were under renovations. 

“You look like a disaster. Didn’t sleep so well?” Phillip asked between bites of toast. 

Henry held back a laugh. A disaster didn’t even start to describe it.

_“The lives we want—they’re not that different. Not in the ways that matter. You want to take what you were given and leave the world better than you found it. So do I. We can—we can figure out a way to do that together.”_

If Alex were in his shoes, he would be making a list, Henry thinks as he approaches his second lap around the building. 

A list. He needs a list. 

Here’s what he knows.

Alex loves him. He said it himself. Three words, out in the open, on the tip of his tongue. 

Henry loves him back. He has all along. 

Alex wants to help him fight for it, For them.

Yet it seems too impossible of an expenditure for them to go through alone. Two boys against centuries? 

He thinks back to Phillip this morning, to Martha. That’s what’s in store for him without Alex: a lifetime with a respectable, nondescript wife, polite, nondescript weddings, and heirs suitable to be in line to the throne. Maybe an affair. His life would pass by without making much noise at all; just another prince, eventually replaced in the public eye by future generations of the English monarchy. Whatever legacy he could leave would never be outstanding or really notable in any way, just what was expected of him. 

And that would be okay. A lifetime of perfectly, totally, okay.

But there’s something more than bothers him. This kind of life, the small marking on history he’s bound to leave anyways: it wouldn’t even be true. 

Maybe in a hundred years historians would uncover his emails with Alex and speculate about their relationship. Some day, someone young and in love would look at the words he wrote when he was too, and wonder why something so sacred, so beautiful, was abandoned. Why he chose something that was just fine when he could have something better. Why it wasn’t worth it. 

Something in his head clears at the thought.

Loving Alex is a contest between loving a boy and loving the blood of a family he has no reason to be proud of. It’s a race between the engravement in the signet ring he wears every day and the hands who wear them. 

History against the one who writes it. 

Loving Alex is worth it. The Crown is the Crown, something he never wanted in the first place. Alex treats him like there’s a decision he can make because _there is one_. He can do twice as much for anyone around him if he lets himself do what he wants first. 

He deserves to have a choice in his own life, and by the time he’s jogging back towards the heavy doors of Kensington Palace, he’s already made the one he needed to. 

5\. 

Henry loves Alex, and Alex loves Henry. 

This is a fact. 

Alex loves him as surely as the sky is blue, as loudly as the streets of New York at 3 am, as steady as the cold hardwood floors of their townhouse in Brooklyn against bare feet. And it’s not like he doesn’t show it; Alex’s endearment is everywhere, written all over the loopy handwriting on the notes he leaves on their kitchen countertop when he has to leave early for class, tucked away neatly in the annotations he leaves late at night in Henry’s favourite books for him to find later. 

Yet, and he’s never told anyone this, but sometimes, out of habit, Henry finds himself wondering if Alex really knows what he’s getting into with him. 

They've been dating for two and a half years though, and the remains of his cracked self-esteem have been long smothered by his affectionate family and friends.

It’s just a thought that pops up every now and then.

Ever since the first summer they went, a road trip to Lake House has remained an end of summer tradition for Alex, June, Nora and him. A getaway from the press, from their jobs, from school. On their first evening there this year, Nora managed to, astonishingly, steal his boyfriend from him. They cuddled up to watch The West Wing, even though it's well known that they both can quote just about any episode of the show by heart. June was one of his best friends, though, and he could make due without Alex, so they settled down with drinks on the wicker porch swing on the front of the house, facing out towards the lake.

“So,” June says between sips of her sangria, “what’s going on with you and Alex?”

“What do you mean? Nothing is up.”

“It very clearly is.”

“I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”

“Sweetie.“ She’s turned towards him now, and the look she’s giving him says that she’s reading into something inside of him she wasn’t invited to. June has this way of making him feel small enough to be known in his entirety. It’s terrifying.

“Any time I ask you about Alex these past months, you act like someone caught you doing something red-handed. I’m usually pretty good at understanding people, but I can tell you honestly that I’m truly stumped trying to figure out what the hell is happening in that head of yours. So, I’m asking you flat out right now. What is it? Spill. You’ve got no excuses.”

Just like always, June has read him correctly. There has been something bugging him, following him around, a constant ringing in his ear he can’t shake off. 

The answer to her question sits in a box in the back of his sock drawer in Brooklyn, one that’s gone untouched for months longer than it should have. In it, a golden engagement ring. 

In classic Henry fashion, it had been an impulse buy, an evening when he was in London without Alex, regretting that he’d told him to prioritize his classes over royal duties. He’d carried the velvet box with him back to New York, and intended to ask Alex eventually.

He never did.

June is staring at him expectantly.

“Nothing is _up, per say._ ” He repeats quietly, I’m just thinking of proposing. To Alex. That’s all.”

June laughs, leaning back into the swing again. “Is that really it?”

“Yep.”

“That’s great though! I don’t know what’s taken you so long, if anything. You just seemed so stressed recently I assumed it’d be something horrible.”

Henry smiles weakly at this. “I’ve had… doubts.”

“About the proposal? Or about Alex?”

“I love him so much, but sometimes–”

“Sometimes...” She echos, eyebrows raised.

“It’s complicated.”

“Hey, try me.”

“It’s just that,” he pauses, searching for the right words, before starting again hesitantly. “Being with me a whole lot more of a commitment than it would be to commit to anyone else. No one wants my position, or all of this.” He gestures vaguely into the air. “And Alex is this beautiful, bright, thing that stumbled into my life haphazardly and he loves me, and I know that, but sometimes I wonder if this is something he really wants. I mean, Ellen is out of office eventually, and he was normal before the Presidency. He could’ve been normal again, lived a normal life, one without the bloody paparazzi or PPOs following him everywhere, or at least something somewhat more normal than what he’d be living with me. I think that deep down, I feel like he was too quick to choose me over the life he thought he would have for the first two decades of his life.”

“Oh.” 

June stretches her legs out in front of her. It takes her a moment to recalibrate. Henry can almost hear the gears turning in her head.

An impossible amount of time seems to pass before she says, “Alex never wanted that, though.”

“What?”

“He never– he never wanted normal, even when he had it. He’s always gone out of his way to be more. He was barely fifteen when he threw himself headfirst into all of this.” She mimics his mannerism from before. “He wants to do as much as he can with his life, and you know that. You know that, right?”

“Of course I do, but–”

“No buts, Henry. He doesn’t love you in spite of your title, or your position or your sometimes, truly awful family. They’re not a thing for him to love you regardless of. It’s part of what he loves you for. I can’t think of anyone more perfect for him. All the paparazzi included.” 

She’s right. Deep down, he knows she’s right.

6\. 

_**BREAKING: HRH Henry of Wales and Alex Claremont-Diaz’s Engagement**_

Alex, historically, was never one for routine. His life has been a constant upheave, pulled from the roots and forced to start over from the beginning in more ways than he could count. Some people, he found, brought things from along their life with them to their new ones: his mom still meditates every morning and every night before bed, the way she used to when she was drowning in work back in Texas; his sister carries a piece of rose quartz in her pocket she’s had since she was sixteen. 

As sentimental and attached as Alex is to his roots, his history, he could never bear to carry too much from his past life into his new one. It was too painful. He was supposed to be someone new, so why carry too many reminders? He left his lacrosse trophies and vintage posters to catch dust in his childhood home in Texas, left his worn out Georgetown hoodie in Nora’s DC loft.

_**10 GIFs That Perfectly Describe Our Reaction When We Heard About Prince Henry & FSOTUS’ Real Life Fairytale **_

In recent months, that’s changed for him, though. A lot of things changed, actually

_**Prince Henry and Alex Claremont-Diaz’s: royal couple announce engagement, wedding plans pending**_

These days, Alex has let himself endulge one ritual. Three things he can’t leave out the door without.

 _One._  
The key to his childhood home, on a silver chain he stole from June when she moved to college. This was always the exception to the “no memorabilia” rule. It sits flat on his chest, the way it has for years, cool metal against the thrumming of his pulse. There’s a constant, grounding reminder of where he came from, etched into the jagged edges of the key’s edge.

 _Two._  
A golden signet ring, hanging on the same chain. He’s not technically supposed to even have this, according to several financial advisors in the royal family who requested he give it back, but Henry gave it to him what seems like a lifetime ago, and he can’t bear letting it go. It was a promise, another reminder, this one about their future: they weren’t going to hide, not where they’re going, not anymore. 

_Three._  
A ring. His favorite of the three, a simple golden band. It’s the final reminder, and the most prominent one of all. He twists it around his finger when he’s stressed, a habit he let himself form absentmindedly. It draws little of the large amounts of attention the ring has garnered to itself, though. He counted seventy-three different articles just about just the jewelry chosen for their engagement on the first day of wearing it publicly.

_**Royal Family Declines to Comment on Rumors of Prince Henry’s Elopement**_

It follows him everywhere, the engagement, the Royal family, the rumors, but it’s not like he minds. He and his friends are making headlines every week at this rate, his relationship the constant feature of fluff pieces squeezed between June’s book and Henry and Pez’s charity work.

_**OMFG: FSOTUS and Prince Henry—Happily Ever After?**_

It’s good. 

It’s all decidedly, very good. 

There’s bad days, but even then, time passes almost quicker than it was invited to. They’re happy. 

When Alex was a kid, before anyone knew his name, he dreamed of love like it was a fairy tale, as if it would come sweeping into his life on the back of a dragon one day.

He was right.

**Author's Note:**

> i've been thinking about writing some june/nora next? is that a good idea? if you have any ideas pls share in the comments i'd love to hear them <33


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